A few steps back:

I got a parking ticket when I went to orientation (for which I was paid). I could park for only two hours in an area which had limited parking to begin with for the Susan G. Komen Run for the Cure, and I was there for three hours because people were asking stupid questions. The street I'd normally choose for parking was cordoned off by police as the runners were using it for their route.

I was so selfrecriminating I was haunted by a fear of impending doom so I bought some tryptophan and 5-hydroxytryptophan (5HTP) to mellow me out.

My child emptied both my Sal Suds and my Dr. Bronner's Lavender Soap: the 32 oz. sizes. Not a frugal move. Not happy. I may need to remove them from his access. I'm using his bank account money to pay for replacements -- his father and I are that angry.

Sold his changing table/chest of drawers.
More decluttering -- removed ten hazardous waste products from our house.

We were approved for the HELOC. We expect to make changes to wiring, windows, improvements to the house to make it marketable. It helps that in our overvalued city, I'm in one of the two areas that does not yet have a growing inventory nor deflating house prices.

I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to suck up the idea of being in debt at least for one year. As long as we have my child's social communication therapy, food, transportation, scooter payments, insurance, heating, gifts, vehicle maintenance, daycare ($$$$$$ for one more year, unless he can qualify for early kindergarten and I doubt that), things will be tight.

I don't want to move anywhere else. I'm in a sustainable, progressive seaport that's near my home country. I eventually will not need a car, will not shell out nearly a thousand dollars for daycare. If I move somewhere else I'll pay more in mortgage, gas, and auto maintenance.

My Jewish uncle said people are moving to the suburbs to raise their kids. I can't afford to move to the suburbs. Five years later being stuck in a white ghetto while gas prices go up to $5.00/gallon, and needing a car to get groceries? We could walk to two supermarkets, three banks, a shopping mall, the dentist, and three drugstores where we currently are. Putting my kid in a cul-de-sac where he's more at risk of being run down in our own driveway by one of us? We're up on New Urbanism, yet we're in what USED to be the suburbs/farmland. Really, we don't need as much lawn as what we have.

And hey, my kid's not where we thought he'd be, intellectually. Still grappling with that. It may take a few swigs of Bouteille Call before I can cope.